Oct 13th

We almost had a full house last night - only Irene absent because she is studying in Japan right now (making us jealous).

We reviewed verbs - +ru verbs and +u verbs, and how to conjugate the +masu form as well as negative and past.

Then practiced the present tense by disussing what typical Japanese people do ("Ie no naka ni kutsu o hakimasen" "surippa o yoku hakimasu" etc)
Then made sentences expressing what "English gentlemen" do ("mainichi kyuri no sando o tabemasu") and what we do (not being English gentlemen ourselves) "kyuri no sando o amari tabemasen.

We used time and frequency terms to qualify things
yoku (often)
mainichi (every day)
shuikkai (once a week)
amari + neg - (not often)
zenzen + neg (never)

Homework was to write a passage describing typical English people and comparing them with ourselves.

Typing in Japanese:

Writing conventions in hiragana

Long vowels:
The long vowels that are represented by a dash in katakana are represented as follows in hiragana.

okāsan (mother) おかあさん　= add and extra あ
onīsan (older brother) おにいさん　＝ add extra い
fūsen (balloon) ふうせん　＝ add extra う
onēsan (older sister) おねえさん　＝add extra え
otōto (younger brother) おとうと　＝ add extra う

Short sounds:
Short sounds represented by a double consonant in romaji and a small tsu ッ　in katakana, are shown by a small tsu っ　in hiragana.
eg.　kitte (stamp) きって

Particles:
The particle wa is written は (usually read "ha")
The particle o is written を　（pronounced o, but typed as “wo”)
Particle e (towards) is written へ　（usually read as “he”)
Other particles are written as they sound.



Japanese input on your PC:
If you have your PC set up to type in Japanese, you need to input in romaji and the computer will change it automatically to hiragana. You need to press the “enter” key every few words to “confirm" the input. Pressing the space bar brings up a selection of kanji, you can select the one you want and press “enter”. If you don't want kanji press the “back” key.

Furigana:
To add furigana to a kanji, first of all type the kanji as desribed above and press enter. Then highlight the kanji, click Format --> Asian Layout --> Phonetic guide - in the box "ruby text" the furigana will automatically appear, if you agree with it click OK. You can if you wish alter what appears as furigana by typing in the "ruby text" box.